THE DEVELOPING HUMAN
INTELLIGENCE: Spiritual Growth According to Emanuel Swedenborg. Interwies of
Brother Benjamin by The New Jerusalem in
Finland.

FOREWORD

This site can improve your intelligence, but
the way is not an easy one. In fact this way is rather difficult and dangerous.
But if you follow the instructions of this site you will be not only a wholly
new creature but also a member of a new human race – homo bonus –
or a good human being which is many times more intelligent than homo
sapiens. This site can be a real revolution on your life. Good
journey!

This site is an unusual one. It does not
contain anything but interviews with a modest Finnish man who has studied
Swedenborg´s works for many decades and not only studied but also lived
according to them. The purpose of this site is to help others to find some facts
not found in any other Swedenborgian sites. This man will be anonymous and will
simply give answers to all who love Swedenborg´s Writings or the Heavenly
Doctrine. His only authority is a 36-year-period of strong temptations which he
has overcome with the Lord’s help. He has not any merit of his own in
conquering his temptations. Benjamin means a spiritual-celestial man who
usually has grievous temptations.

The publisher of this site is a Finnish society
which is behind these interviewing questions: Nova Hierosolyma
ry (ry means a registered society in
Finland) or The New
Jerusalem in english. We hope that many other Swedenborgian people
will pose questions to this man whom we call The Humble World Teacher
or just Brother Benjamin. But to begin with, there will be a
brief theoretical discourse about the term Benjamin. This
matter is fully treated of in Swedenborg’s Apocalypse Explained, 449.
The quotations from the Bible are from the New King James Version if not
otherwise mentioned. This site will not be a perfect explanation of any
spiritual phenomena. It is only a kind of a study advisor. The English in the
answers can be sometimes incorrect. If some native speaker is interested in
correcting or emending the text, please contact us.

Question 1: Dear Benjamin, please tell us a
little about your life and how you discovered the New Church Doctrine?

Answer:

I do not want to bore you with my childhood or
adolescence but I will tell you some facts which have been important for my
spiritual development.

Philosophy and especially the problem of the
human intelligence began attract me when I was still quite young. This lead
later to studying philosophy and psychology in university. I also got
membership in Mensa which is a society for people with high
IQ. But both university and Mensa were disappointments. I did not get a
solution to the problem of the human intelligence. The university and Mensa
were a certain kind of kindergartens which have failed in explaining human
intellect. The human intelligence was more complicated than I had expected and
academic

psychology could not fully explaine it.

One night in July 1973 I experienced a strange
phenomenon: the internal sight of my right eye suddenly opened on the
night of the 21st of July. The experience was surprising. The exact time was at
4.56 (Finnish time, 2:56 UTC) in the morning. I looked at myself in the mirror
but there was not any physical change in my right eye. However, with my right
eye I saw some kind of symbolic significance in things, colours and pictures. I
called this a secret code at that time. I opened my Bible, which I did not use
to read because I was an atheist and a member of the Finnish Communist Party in
those days. I saw a secret code in the text of the Apocalypse, too. At the same
moment I ceased to be an atheist and was certain that God existed. I looked at
the calendar and noticed that on the 21st of July 1969 man from our planet
first set foot on the surface of the moon (at 2.56 UTC). Then an astonishing
idea came to my mind from an unrecognizable source: I felt that I was the
king of the earth and the moon in some inexplicable way. At that time
I was studying psychology at the
University
of
Helsinki and I did not
have mental problems and I realized that the king of the earth and the moon
should mean something symbolic, which I did not understand yet. Many kinds of
geometrical figures also appeared in front of my eyes: squares, triangles,
heart-shaped figures etc. All the figures were perfect and very pleasant to
see. I saw the heart-shaped figures with the tip of the heart upwards and later
I understood what it meant: I was in a state of inverted order, that is, I was
unregenerated. I then remembered the moment when man first stepped foot on the
moon. My father was watching television and asked me to come and watch the
event, too. I was lying in my bed and could not raise either my hands or my
feet. A strange current was flowing into my body. I lay for a few minutes
without being able to move. There was a peculiar vibration in my room. Later,
after many years, I understood what had caused this experience.

The internal sight in my right eye lasted about
two weeks, after which it left me gradually. For those two weeks I was in an
exceptionally intelligent state. I understood many laws of physics and
mathematics which I had not understood before. For example, I saw the solution
to the great sentence of Pierre de Fermat. Later I tried to write down this
solution but I did not succeed in it because the solution required a three-dimensional
construction and I had lost the key to the solution.

I finished my psychology studies (I had already
taken a BA degree) and began to study parapsychology, religions and mysticism
in order to find out the explanation of the phenomenon I had experienced. I
read dozens of books about these subjects but I did not make a find. In July
1975 I caught one of Emanuel Swedenborg‘s works, Heaven, its Wonders and
Hell. When I started reading it, I suddenly experienced the same
phenomenon as two years before and I understood that I had come across what I
had been searching for. Swedenborg explains that secret code which he calls the
science of correspondences and the internal sense of the Word.
I also realized what the king of the earth and the moon meant: in the Word the
king of the earth means a spiritual man as the priest means a celestial man,
and the king of the earth and the moon means a spiritual-celestial man whom the
name Benjamin also signifies. The spiritual-celestial means something between the
celestial (the sun) and the spiritual (the moon), as the moon is between the
earth and the sun. The task of the spiritual-celestial man is to teach
spiritual-celestial truths and to reveal corresponding infernal influx to the
spiritual and natural man. In the Revelation 12:1 this also is mentioned: “Now
a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the
moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.”

I did not know anyone acquainted with
Swedenborg. From the library of the
University
of
Helsinki I borrowed
books written by Swedenborg and translated into English. I began to study them
with enthusiasm. In about one year I had read most of the theological books of
the
New
Church. This theology flowed easily and
most pleasantly into my understanding. I enjoyed everything I read. Everything
was true and clear. The theology of the New Jerusalem opens the understanding
and is the opposite of the old Christian theology which closes the
understanding. The sense of the Word I experienced was not exactly the same as
in Swedenborg’s works. In fact I understood two kinds of senses. The one was
exactly the same as in Swedenborg’s books but the other one was different and
referred to myself and worldly and natural things. Later I understood that the
other sense was the spiritual-celestial sense. This sense is marvellous because
one experiences that it refers to oneself and to worldly things in the present
time. This experience arises from the fact that the spiritual and the natural are
conjoined in this sense.

In the autumn of 1976 I got into strong
temptations as does everyone who eagerly follows the Doctrine of the New
Jerusalem. But I resorted to the Lord and I conquered all the temptations which
are attacks of evil spirits. Every conquered temptation increases spiritual
intelligence. If man resorts to something else but to the Lord in temptations,
he will lose. It is especially dangerous to resort to psychology or psychiatry,
which are infernal doctrines and cause great damage to mankind because of their
iniquity. Materialistic and atheistic psychology and psychiatry are not
familiar with spiritual or celestial temptations; they do not even know the
existence of the soul and this is a proof of total spiritual ignorance.

In the spring of 1977 I sold all my property
and travelled with my wife and our young daughter to
Great Britain for the purpose of
studying the Heavenly Doctrine there. I met many ministers and members of the
New Jerusalem. I found that the New Jerusalem in
Great Britain was under control of
the Dragonists (the ones who believe but do not follow the instructions of
their religion). There were also genuine members of the
New
Church,
but the leaders of the church broke the first Commandment of the Decalogue,
that is, they made the world more important than God. In fact Swedenborg
predicts this (Apocalypse Explained, 765). The same observation was
later made by a friend of mine who examined Swedenborgian organizations in the
USA.

From
Great
Britain we moved to Gothenburg in
Sweden where I became familiar with
Swedish Swedenborgian organizations. In
Sweden the New Jerusalem also was
under control of Dragonists. However, we wanted to be formal members of the New
Jerusalem and a minister baptized us, gave us the Lord’s Supper and married us
according to the Canons of the New Jerusalem in
Stockholm on the 4th of May, 1978. A few
weeks earlier the skull of Emanuel Swedenborg had unexpectedly put up for
auction in
London.
The skull was buried into the sarcophagus of Emanuel Swedenborg in Uppsala
Cathedral on the 3rd of May, 1978. The burial and our wedding did not take
place so simultaneously by chance but were a work of
Providence. Swedenborg’s body had been a
temple of the Lord when he had been writing his theological works. Swedenborg’s
body symbolized the Spiritual New Jerusalem. But the skull was stolen from the
body and used in the rituals of the Freemasons. It meant that the New Jerusalem
was without its celestial head. Through our wedding a new celestial heaven of the
Lord was opened. A new church always starts with one married couple and this
couple opens the door to a new conjugial heaven for others. “All creation
commences from one man and his consort; and since, as was said, this new
creation could not come into existence from Adam and his descendants, therefore
Noah was chosen and was reformed that it might commence from him, he being like
a new ground which had long been prepared to the end that this new harvest
might be brought fourth. But here there are many things which are among the
deepest arcana of Jehovah God.” (Word Explained, 3239).

In Gothenburg we were persecuted by the Jews
and the Freemasons and were ejected from our apartment. At that time we had
three children. The city of
Gothenburg
offered an apartment for my wife and our children but not for me. This was an
attempt to destroy our marriage. The reason for our eviction was that I used to
play the violin at home. I am a professional violinist, educated at
Sibelius
Academy. Some of the neighbours complained
about my playing and after a long legal procedure the Swedish Supreme Court
decided that I was not permitted to play the violin at home even though the
health board had measured the volume of the sound, which showed that my playing
could not disturb anybody. The trial was a ridiculous farce. Before the
eviction I had been accepted as a violinist to the symphony orchestra of
Vaasa, in
Finland,
and we moved to
Finland.

My 200-year-old violin was stolen in connection
with this eviction. I asked for two weeks of postponement in the orchestra to
get a new violin. It was not approved of and I was forced to be unemployed
before I had even started as a violinist. Later I learned that the employer was
a high degree Swedish Freemason. In
Vaasa
a drunken Freemason told me that I had been made a victim of the Freemasons and
that I could never get any professional work or even be socially successful in
my life.

Since I had no work, I started to deepen my
studies in the theology of the New Jerusalem and I wrote a book about the New
Church Doctrine and Swedenborg. With some friends of mine I also established
the Finnish Swedenborg Society. Later I understood that my unemployment was of
Providence because the
Lord Himself was guiding my theology studies and I needed to experience strong
temptations, during which normal work could not have been possible.

My book about the theology and philosophy of
the New Jerusalem was completed in 1985, and the Finnish Swedenborg Society
published it in January, 1986, titled Brother Benjamin: Developing of
Intelligence; Spiritual Development According to Emanuel Swedenborg. The
book sold well. A Finnish physician considered the book as the best he had ever
read, and he bought a hundred copies of it and donated them to people. This
doctor died soon of mysterious causes. After the book had been sold for two
months, the Central Council of Finland’s Jewish Congregations reported the book
to the police. In the book there were some pages about the Jews and Zionism:
Swedenborg’s view on the religious role of the Jews and a short presentation of
the Zionists’ international power in the chapter The Present Age in the
Light of the Science of Correspondences. The police did not find anything
illegal in the book and the prosecutor did not take a juridical act. After thatHelsingin Sanomat, the biggest newspaper in
Finland, published a wide review of
the book. The review was totally untrue: The book was branded anti-Semitic. The
false critique reduced the sale of the book considerably. The Finnish
Swedenborg Society sued Helsingin Sanomat but a high degree Freemason who acted
as chairman of the court defended Helsingin Sanomat and the society lost the
case. In the trial the writer of the review admitted that he had written it “at
the request of his Jewish friends”

In 1995 I and my family immigrated to
Norway
and I got a job as a violin pedagogue. Two years later the Norwegian Freemasons
caused the budget of the music school where I taught to be reduced, and I lost
my job. Although I am a qualified violin teacher, Norwegian Freemasons kept me
unemployed as a teacher for many years. This happened in spite of the fact that
I had ten children at that time.
Norway is not an independent
country; it is tightly under the supervision of the Freemasons and the Jews
even though the Norwegians themselves do not know that. In
Norway there are more Freemasons
per inhabitants than in any other country. There are also many organizations of
Israel’s
friends. It is a custom of the Jews to blacken their opponents as anti-Semites:
anybody who is opposed to
Israel
and Zionism in some way is branded anti-Semitic.

Being persecuted by the Jews, Freemasons and
Israel’s
friends has not damaged me at all; on the contrary, it has been of great
advantage. In fact, it has promoted my spiritual development because the Lord
protects everyone who is being regenerated and He always conjoins better and
better angels to the one who is being persecuted: “A Psalm of David. The
Lord said to my Lord, ’Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your
footstool’. The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of
Zion. Rule in the midst of
Your enemies!” (Psalm 110: 1, 2). God changes the attacks of evil spirits
into an advantage to the one who is being regenerated. My temptations have now
lasted over 36 years and I have overcome hundreds of temptations with the
Lord’s help. Now I am ready to begin to teach spiritual-celestial truths and
disclose influence of the deepest hells for the New Jerusalem. The
spiritual-celestial heaven is the opposite of the satanic-devilish or Jewish
hell: “A wicked and adulterous generation” (Matthew 16:4). That is why
the Jews have a special religious role on our planet. As the spiritual sense of
the Word often concerns
Christian
Churches, the spiritual-celestial
sense of the Word concerns the Jewish Church and the Jews in the present time.
The Jews can cheat the spiritual and natural man but not the
spiritual-celestial man. The power of the Jews on our planet rises out of this
reason. That is why the Lord Himself was born as a spiritual-celestial man and
that is why the
New
Church cannot become the
Wife of the Lord without Benjamin.

In 1977 I intended to study at the
New
Church
College in
England but the Dragonistic
teachers did not accept me. Now I am a teacher guided by the Lord Himself
(Psalm 110: 4-7). My studying consists in temptations and self-tuition, that
is, submitting to temptations and reading the Word and the Writings.

In my life there have been hundreds of events
which prove the wonderful guidance of
Providence
through correspondences. I will mention just a few:

As sixteen I went to confirmation classes. I
was an atheist at the time and had lost my childhood faith in God. Our
clergyman gave me a Bible as a confirmation present. On its front page he had
written a passage from his own Bible for my future life: Paul’s second letter
to Timothy, Chap. 2: 11-13. I began to look for this passage in my gift Bible
but I did not find it. The clergyman did not find it either because this sheet
(technically folio) was missing. It had been excluded in the printing house. No
other sheet was missing. In that letter Paul writes: If we deny Him, He
also will deny us. After my enlightenment (on the 21st of June 1973) I
also understood the verse 13 in the same letter: If we are faithless, He
remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. The missing of the sheet did not
happened by chance but it was of
Providence.

Once I was playing the violin at a festival on
the 22nd of November, 1963. I was then 17 years old. My violin teacher had lent
me an old and valuable violin bow with a nut of gold and tortoise bone. When I
had stopped playing, a small boy stepped on this bow breaking it. I was
shocked. When I came home and switched on the radio I heard that President
Kennedy had been shot. My borrowed violin bow had broken at the same moment as
President Kennedy had been assassinated. This event led me to study
international politics and the international power of the Jews: I found the
Jews guilty of the assassination. After that I gave numerous lectures about the
power of the Jews in Mensa, a society for people with a high IQ. A book
published in 1993 in the
USA
shows that the Jews really were behind the assassination (Michael Collins
Piper: Final Judgment). Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu also
told the same fact in the summer of 2004
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-criminalsandspies-vanunu.html. President Kennedy
was assassinated because he resisted
Israel’s nuclear weapons programme.
Here I must mention that I do not have anything against common Jews who are
just normal and decent people but I do not accept politics of the so called
Secret Jewish World Government whose existence I know with certainty. I do not
accept any kind of racism. Judaism and Zionism are the most malicious kind of
racism. Despite of this the regenerated Jews become angels.

After my enlightenment I had to change my
surname. I felt that my name had to be Stone corresponding to
Daniel’s Book 2: 34. In 1995 my family moved to
Norway into a town whose name means
Stone Dear (Steinkjer) in English. It has been marvellous that the address of
my house has nearly always corresponded to some symbol or to some Psalm so that
it has signified what kind of temptation I have had to overcome there. All
numbers have a spiritual meaning and prime numbers often refer to Psalms (1, 2,
3, 5, 7, 11, 13, …,149).

When I wrote my book about the New Jerusalem
and Swedenborg my intuition ordered me to take the brother Benjamin as my pen
name. Benjamin is the same as ”the king of the earth and the moon” in the
science of correspondences. Benjamin signifies the conjunction of truth and
good in the natural man and also in the earthly spiritual-natural church or in
the New Jerusalem (see Arcana Coelestia, 5822). I was born in a place
called Niska (Neck in English) and it was a correspondence (Arcana
Coelestia, 6033). My profession as a violin teacher also corresponds to
the function of Benjamin: a violin is played between the head and the body. In
January 2005 the Lord took away my ability to play the violin by paralyzing two
fingers of my left hand. This happened by cervical radiculopathy in my neck. I
had been practising on the violin excessively for recording Bach’s solo works
but
Providence
had other plans for me. Benjamin also means the right hand, which signifies the
Divine Power. It has been odd that people who have tried to hurt me have often
injured their right hand later. So the Lord leads a regenerated man through
correspondences.

I have never talked with spirits but sometimes by
meditating my breathing has slowed down and my insight has increased. My
insight has been related to theological, philosophical, scientific and
political matters but not with the problems of everyday life. In this state of
enlightenment I also have seen societies of angels in front of me in the form
of regular geometric figures. In these states I have a pleasant feeling of
certainty.

Only once I have seen into the spiritual world:
I saw distinctly the face of the former head of the state of
Spain, Francisco Franco on the 20th
of November 1976 when I was looking at our wedding picture. I have had severe
temptations but I suppose that few people can understand spiritual-celestial
temptations. But everyone has to know that nobody can be regenerated without temptations
and one will lose temptations if one resorts to anything else but to the Lord.
In my sleep I have often seen the Lord as the sun up on the right-hand side of
my sight.

Before I was born a clairvoyant woman had told
my mother a long prophecy, which has come true except the last words which were
astonishing and had reference to my life. I do not believe in clairvoyants but
Providence can use them to
aid the process of regeneration. This prophecy has given me courage of starting
my duty as a teacher and a reformer in the
New
Church.

The Jews (the Mossad I suppose) have tried to
hurt me and even murder me some times. In Gothenburg they made a false report
of a serious crime to the police. An angel told me about the report in a dream
on the previous night and I left home for a few minutes before the arrival of
the police. My cars have damaged three times dangerously and two attempts have
been made to poison me. But nobody has been successful in hurting me because of
the protection of the Lord.

My last severe temptation was when my wife died
in an accident on the 25 November 2006. All that was of
Providence and for the benefit of the New
Jerusalem. I am now in constant contact with the New Heaven through my wife.
Our marrige symbolizes the marriage between the New Heaven and the New
Jerusalem which is an eternal union of man and God on our
planet.

I have told these stories in order to show the
wonderful guidance of Divine Providence. I also hope that the reader of this
text would do the same as I do: to recognize the Divine Human in the Lord Jesus
Christ and to live according to the Decalogue as the Doctrine of the New
Jerusalem teaches (see DECALOGUE). These two principles include the whole
Christian religion.

I do not expect or want any kind of authority
over my texts. I do know that many people dislike them, especially what
concerns the Jews whose role is not generally understood in our days. But I
only want that some people will understand the following new truths and will be
benefited by them.

“It shall be shown that the greatest power
is in correspondences; because in them heaven and the world, or the spiritual
and the natural, are together. That for this reason the Word was written by
mere correspondences; wherefore, through it there is the conjunction of man
with heaven, and thus with the Lord. The Lord also by this means is in firsts
and at the same time in ultimates. On this account the sacraments have been
instituted through correspondences, and therefore there is the Divine power in
them.” (Invitation to the New Church, 59).

Finally I will tell you a revolutionary idea
from the heavenly Doctrine:According to Swedenborg the hereditary evil from
new-born parents is diminishing in the next generation and so after many
generations the hereditary evil is diminishing more and more until it gives
birth for an totally new human race – Homo bonus. This is a revolutionary
idea for the
New
Church. This prophesies a new form
of human race which is conneted with the New Heaven. It is fully interpreted in
Isaiah 65: 17-25. This new human race begins in Finlad and continues probably
in Western Intelligencia and then in
South
America and all over the world. I and my wife are the first
conjugial pair which forms the beginning of this new race. We are not better
than others, just the first couple which has had many severe temptations. To
bring forth a new human race is the holy commission of the New Church Clergy.
The present New Church Clergy does not understand this but the Clergy from the
Finnish New Jerusalem does and this is in fact the beginning of the
International New Jerusalem. I hope that a part of the present
New
Church
people will conjoin us. I am sure that this Finnish New Jerusalem is that
Jerusalem which is fortold
in Revelation but I am not sure where it begins as a large organization. Maybe
in
South America. The peoples in Western
civilization are so degenerated that very few person can be regenerated and be
a member of the New Jerusalem.

Benjamin as a spiritual function in the Word of
God

Why are the present New Churches
(Swedenborgian) not the Church mentioned in Revelation 21:2? My answer to this
most important question is that the name Benjamin is not
spiritually understood. Without this understanding the
New
Church
cannot come into existence on the earth as a real Wife of the Lord. See Psalm
68.

The unacquainted can find this part of the text
incomprehensible partly because some terms by Swedenborg have a different
meaning in the present-day language. For the unacquainted I recommend the
following web site: www.theheavenlydoctrines.org. On this site
you can find links into many Swedenborgian sites and online versions of
Swedenborg’s theological works and of many English versions of the Holy Bible.
But you should keep in mind that all the Swedenborgian churches and
organizations except Nova Hierosolyma (Uusi Jerusalem, The New
Jerusalem) in Finland are in hand of the Dragonists, i.e. in hand of
the persons serving the world more than the Lord.

This text is an unusual one. The purpose of
this text is to help others to find some facts not found in any other
Swedenborgian texts. But to begin with, there will be a brief theoretical
discourse about the term Benjamin. This matter is fully
treated of in Apocalypse Explained, 449. The quotations from the Bible
are from the New King James Version if not otherwise mentioned. This text will
not be a perfect explanation of any spiritual phenomena. It is only a kind of a
study advisor. The English in the text can be sometimes incorrect. If some
native speaker is interested in correcting or emending the text, please contact
us (Nova Hierosolyma ry PL 22 02771
Espoo
Finland
or (MAIL@NOVAHIEROSOLYMA.FI).

”But we said, ‘We cannot go down; if our youngest
brother is with us, then we will go down; for we may not see the man’s face
unless our youngest brother is with us.’” (Genesis 44:26).

This means that unless the intermediate that
accomplishes the joining together (Benjamin) is with them there is no
conjunction. This is clear from the representation of Benjamin, to whom the
youngest brother refers. Benjamin represents the intermediate between the
celestial and the spiritual. Benjamin also signifies the conjunction of truth
and good in the natural man and in the earthly spiritual-natural church or in
the New Jerusalem (see Arcana Coelestia, 5822).

This also means that a spiritual church cannot
be joined to God without influx from the higher heavens and this influx is
spiritual-celestial or intelligence from the celestial heaven. Joseph means the
Lord Himself. Benjamin means the intermediate and the ten other brothers mean
natural men in the world. This also means that the first journey of Joseph’s
brothers represents the first Swedenborgian Churches without Benjamin because
in this connection the words refer to the end of the days, that is, to our
days. The second journey with Benjamin, which has now begun, will lead the New
Jerusalem, that is, our days’ Swedenborgians into the eternal conjunction with the
Only God.

”Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he shall devour the prey, And
at night he shall divide the spoil.” (Genesis 49:27)

The night is the end of the days, that is, the Swedenborgian Churches. Benjamin
will then divide what the Church has taken, that is to say, he will separate
the living Swedenborgians from the dead. This is one of the functions of
Benjamin.

In general, in the last days Benjamin’s role is
decisive. Only he is a spiritual-celestial man who, with the help of the Lord, can
separate and snatch men away from the jaws of the Devil. Spiritual and natural
men perish gradually without influx from the higher heavens. They cannot defeat
the devils who originate from the hells contrary to the higher heavens. That is
why all spiritual churches have perished on this earth. Therefore the Lord
Himself was born as a spiritual-celestial man which quality
Bethlehem also signifies. An eternal church
can live only with Benjamin. See Psalm 68: Benjamin’s function is to be the
leader of the
New
Church.